The Day John and Sherry Showed Up at My House

I’ve ‘known’ John and Sherry Petersik of Young House Love since 2007. We started our blogs around the same time and we’ve chatted plenty of times via email over the years, but we had never met before. When I read that they were going to be in Chicago for their book tour, I sent them an email hoping to find a little time to meet up. Sherry wrote back and said that they were down for one of their infamous house crashes, and so we set a date.

Do you know how weird it is to meet someone you’ve known for five years by them coming to your house? I mean, it was awesome, but it was also a little surreal to see John and Sherry walking up to my front door.

They came in, we all hugged, and then they house crashed. Brandon and August were home the whole time, and John and Sherry met Eleanor for a few minutes too after Brandon picked her up from preschool. Clara was back at home with her grandma, but we all agreed that she and Eleanor would have been toddler besties.

I drove John and Sherry to their hotel when they were done taking photos of the house, and on the way I tried to point out interesting things around Chicago. “There’s the Sears/Willis Tower, over there is the Trump Tower” and so on. And of course I blurted out “here’s where R. Kelly shot Trapped in the Closet!” I’m not sure if they were into that (but man, “En Vogue… with a new lead singer” had me and Brandon cracking up in the latest installment). Later that night, Sherry and I realized that we (professional bloggers that we are) forgot to take a picture of “Young House Love and Making it Lovely” together with a decent camera. We made sure to get one with the three of us the next day, but of course I only had my phone with me. Behold!

(Pics or it didn’t happen.)

See all those people behind us there? The line for them at their book signing was crazy long, with people wrapped around the store and waiting out in the rain. It was a dedicated (and really sweet) group of people. I’ve worked and attended a lot of book readings, but this was a particularly good one. A few people in the crowd even recognized me and had me sign my page in the book (I contributed project #199), which felt really cool.

43 Responses to “Young House Love”

Ack, three of my favourite bloggers all together! So fun that you finally got to meet each other after all these years. I met John & Sherry at the Toronto tour stop and they were so nice and humble and such troopers for meeting all their fans.

Aw…my top three favorite bloggers! I love that YHL house-crashed you! I love your beautiful home. So, I’ve got my YHL book, now when are you putting out a book so I can buy it too? (I vote “For the love of Pink” as a title :))

I KNEW it was you! Who else could rock such a cool outfit, though there were a lot of wonderfully dressed people there! So sad I didn’t speak up and get to at least say how much I appreciated your blog and how beautiful your home and family are! Also, I had to pick up my jaw, because MY HUSBAND IS INTERNET FAMOUS (In the good way) and wearing that awesome grey and white striped sweater in your pic above! So glad you got house crashed, and I’ve been waiting for it over on YHL!

Holy moly! I LOVe all three of you! And together??? Like magic. I am sure you guys had so much fun meeting one another. I have a MUCH smaller blog thans yours but it is so great meeting new friends through it! It’s been my favorite part :)

Ahh, it was so much fun to meet you! We had the best time. Thanks for having us over and showing us around. And I’m sorry we didn’t impress upon you how hilarious that Trapped In The Closet tidbit was for us. That was one of our first jokes when we started dating (John even gifted me a burned CD of that song because of the hilarity). Just don’t ask me the words. All I remember is “a rubber, rubber, rubber” echoing at the end of one “chapter.”

Can’t wait to share the photos of your beautiful house!

xo
Sherry (& John)

p.s. Clara agrees, she and Eleanor would have been toddler besties for sure.

Sweet! Can’t wait to see their house crashing post! I think I originally found their blog through yours when you both did the front porch makeovers. I’ve been reading both your blogs for a while now :) How fun to finally meet!

So cool! When my boyfriend and I went on our “Renovation Roadtrip” in October and visited bloggers we’ve been “internet friends” with for 3-4 years it was SO FUN meeting them in person and getting to work on their houses with the. Seriously, the trip of a lifetimehttp://www.picardyproject.com/2012/11/now-that-its-over.html

I’m so glad that you all got to meet up! I hope to meet some of my blogger friends in real life someday — it seems like it would be wonderful! Thanks for sharing these fun photos with us. The book was on my Christmas list, so I can’t wait to see what project you contributed! xo

This is so cool! Love their blog, love both your styles, love that they’re from the DC/MD/VA area and that YOU are from the Midwest and I’ve relocated to Southern Illinois. Good karma all around!
Happy to see you three together!

I love this whole post, and I love John and Sherry, but can we just take a moment to talk about Trapped in a Closet?!

Nicole, watching the installments is a Thanksgiving tradition for us in Chicago – one of my good friends is an opera singer, and she was asked to sing for R Kelly one Thanksgiving about 4 years ago while he ate dinner (with this “girls”)! Ha! Ever since, we make sure to watch all the chapters after dinner, and we sing along – and usually end up in TEARS of laughter.

We still haven’t seen the latest one though, since it came out the day AFTER T-giving! I’ll be sure to keep a listen to the En Vogue reference (since they were one of my favorites as a young girl).

I saw you at the West Elm event snapping photos, but I didn’t want to be a creeper and say hello from across the parking lot (even though I love your blog!). I did find myself in one of your pictures above though!